The Rats
by Paradox-91
Summary: An adventurer finds the secret true-name of PERYITE. (One-Shot)
A slim man draped in a dark cloak walked the road by pale moonlight. Upon his head was a circlet of aged bronze, vibrating with some alternating frequency that made his head ache, and which sat too large upon his rounded man-ears, practically all but hidden under the cloak's hood. He shifted in and out of the darkness, as if one with the shadows, his cloak shimmering in the slight, midnight breeze He walked quickly on feathered boots, with strange, glowing runes on their soles, their light hardly escaping the darkness that his cloak cast around him. He was once an Enchanter, or, at the very least, in cohorts with a league of them at one point in his life, but that was no longer his calling. Now, upon his hip, sat a glimmering, green blade, milky and translucent, with origins in some rare vein in the northern provinces. Under his cloak, chainmail of very fine make, which sang and whistled instead of rang and clanked. He wore a face of stoic resolve, but underneath, his soul shook.

His boots carried him swiftly north, up and up, further and further, with a tireless stride that seemed to outpace the mounted couriers that he passed in the night. An enchantment of nighteye was cast upon him and with it his eyes shot back and forth, his head bobbing about like a bird's. Finally, and not quickly enough for his taste, the walls of Skingrad came into view.

"Halt! Here, into the light, spellcaster!" called out the sentry, when he caught sight of the traveller.

"Allow me to pass." The traveller demanded. His words hummed with magick.

"I can't say I shall. Your tricksy words fall on deaf ears, man." He reached beneath his breastplate to tug on a golden chain; it twinkled in the firelight. The glimmer caught the traveller's eye and the darkness that besieged him was momentarily broken. What a fortuitous chance this was!

"An interesting chain. From whom did you acquire it? I know many enchanters about this area."

"It was a gift, spellslinger. It is not my business to meddle about the affairs of where my gifts come from or whom they are purchased from."

"Then humour me only slightly, Cyrod, and if you will not let me pass, then give me a riddle for my travels and I will be on my way."

"A riddle? Mages are queer folk, you are. Very well, only if it will lend me some rest of you, strange man. Hmm, a riddle? Ah, yes. On which night did the crooked arrow fly?"

"Only yeomen practice riddles." answered the traveller. Once the words left his lips, he could hear a sizzling sound emanate from the sentry above. Though he suspected that the man himself could not hear it.

"Bah, be on your way if you're just here for tricks. I won't have it!"

"Allow me to pass." The traveller insisted.

"Ah, of course." The sentry replied, his tone suddenly friendly. He called for the gates to be opened for a single traveller to pass through. With one last gaze behind him, the man quickly entered the gate.

It was unlikely he would be found behind the gates of Skingrad, of all places. And because of that, he allowed himself a brief moment of peace. What did leave a sour mark upon him, however, was the guard and his curious chain. He quickly found the nearest inn and moved towards it, murmuring to himself quietly.

"What a strange thing. Have the stars aligned themselves so? Ah, it as is likely they are still beset against me."

He entered the tavern and dispelled himself of his nighteye, taking a moment to readjust, when he spotted a figure in the corner, waving him over. Dread took him. He slowly approached the figure. It was a dunmer, wrapped in fine silks, with familiar markings on his face.

"Was I that easy to find?" spoke the traveller with a sickly tone.

"Take off that circlet. You're only hurting yourself." the Dunmer replied. The traveller obliged with a sigh of pained reluctance.

"I have dreaded this moment. You gave that guard the chain then, yes?"

"Do you think it was clever?"

"The ruse has succeeded. Yes, it was clever."

"I, too, must admit it was. Though I was not the constructor of it. It was HE that told me that the guard would fancy your chain. 'He will see his own chain upon the guard,' HE said, 'and he will think himself lucky. He will know how to undo the enchantment and, having never tried it out, he will be compelled to do so.'"

The traveller shot a look at the innkeep, standing idly at the bar.

"Is it safe to speak the same words HE spoke here?"

The Dunmer laughed.

"The innkeep is dead, that is his image."

"I admit, I am slightly glad it is you and not the Rats that found me."

"The Rats may still find you. Beware of them."

"Then HE is not offering me protection in exchange...?"

"Protection? No, I am afraid not. A place in Attribution's Share, your own, with a vast share of mazes under your domain, and plenty of those who are not there by choice to serve."

"I'd rather spend my afterlife in somewhere nice. Moonshadow, and the enchantment against its blinding curses."

"Are the agents of Azura here? How long do you really expect to live? Long enough for every Prince and Princess to court you?"

"My fate is not so dark as you make it."

The Dunmer laughed.

"Even now, the Rats gather underneath the floorboards. You don't have time to accept any other offer."

"Boethiah is known to go against his word."

"Can you afford to mistrust HIM now?"

"If the Rats are gathering as you say they are, PERYITE will kill us both here and now."

"I have my afterlife secured." the Dunmeri said confidently.

"Fine! Fine.. I did not think my story was to end so quickly."

At this the Dunmer howled. The shallow sound of scratching could be made out beneath the pair.

"You, a mortal, find the protonymic of PERYITE by chance and you DIDN'T think you would not be hunted down like a prized Nix?"

"Hand me a pen that will not break!"

The Dunmer handed him one. He had prepared for this moment.

"Damn that book. Damn it to Oblivion! It was smouldering on the page like a sleeping fire. I should've known better."

The traveller spoke to himself as he etched the protonymic into the wooden table. The Rats underneath the floorboards began to scream.

As soon as the pen lifted up from the table, the last word scrawled like burn marks into the wood, the floorboards shattered with the force of Rats.

"It's too late!" The Dunmer screamed as the Rats overtook him, "HE knows your name!" The last of his cries were cut as the Rats crawled into his throat. The traveller, too, was overtaken by them, and picked clean by them within seconds. When the wave of vermin receded, the table was destroyed, and two bundles of clothes and weapons lay next to overturned stools. The floor was sundered.

The next morning a local butcher walked by an inn that normally garnered no attention but, today, two guards were standing about the entrance.

"What's going on?"

"'Ello Bront. There was a murder, and a strange mystery all about it!"

"You don't say!"

"The innkeeper dead and dead rats, fatter than I ever seen, all about the place! Best keep moving along."

"Indeed, I better have! I suppose I'll read all about it in the Courier."

"It will make the headlines tomorrow!"


End file.
